It seems everyone in Nigeria is talking about restructuring these days, as if it is a silver bullet to end all contentions and achieve the ultimate synthesis. The Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima, captured the various campaigners and the range of the campaigns: “We have witnessed in the last few months, all manner of political agitations, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. While some arguably more moderate and mature voices have advocated for the scrapping of the 1999 Constitution and a return to the 1963 Republican Constitution with its emphasis on regionalism, others have called for the practice of “true” or “fiscal’ federalism. Yet another group is aggressively seeking to commit the nation to adopt the Report of the 2014 Constitutional Conference as the authoritative basis for discussing restructuring, while at the extreme end of the scale, we have the champions of a separatist agenda who are hell-bent on balkanising the country.”
Interestingly, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo said the Federal Government was following the nationwide fever: “We are looking at all contributions made by Nigerians across the country. Very soon we will come out with policies to address the call for restructuring of the country.” It is noteworthy that the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), on July 19 formed a nine-member committee headed by Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State to come up with a response to the issue.
It is striking that another committee was created on July 28 by the 19 Northern states “to collate the views and comments of the people of the Northwest, North-central and Northeast ahead of any conference on the restructuring.” This committee is headed by Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State.
As things stand, it is predictable that there will be other committees on the restructuring controversy set up by other groups to take a position on the increasingly divisive subject. In the storm, there are many loud voices that seem to miss the point. For instance, the former APC Interim National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, said: ”The 1999 Constitution is Nigeria’s greatest misadventure since Lugard’s amalgamation of 1914. The constitution puts emphasis on spending rather than making money, thereby intensifying the battles for supremacy between the legislature and the executive while the judiciary is being corruptly tainted and discredited. The constitution breeds and protects corrupt practices and criminal impunities in governance. The 1999 Constitution can never be beneficially reviewed and the ongoing piecemeal adjustments or amendments can only totally blot the essence of national values and accelerate the de-amalgamation of Nigeria. All the angels coming from heavens cannot make that constitution work for the progress of Nigeria. It should only be scrapped as bad relics of military mentality; and it ought to be temporarily replaced with the 1963 Republican Constitution to enable a transition for the writing of a suitable constitution.”
Taking the same path, the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) argued: “A constitution that virtually neutralises the local government system, which is the nearest to the people has invariably consigned the people to irrelevance and put development at the grassroots in reverse gear. A constitution and system of government that continue to explore natural resources to enrich the ruling class at the expense of the people cannot endure. This constitution compels corruption. Our country is presently confronted with daunting challenges of increasing youth unemployment, which is fueling insecurity, kidnapping, armed robbery and separatist agitations. These challenges clearly show that Nigeria’s problems are foundational and structural, therefore, constitutional. Unending piecemeal amendments of the 1999 Constitution cannot work. It will merely be postponing the doomsday. The constitution must be discarded, and the 1963 Constitution and the resolutions of the 2014 National Conference should be used as a template for a new ground rule, which will be submitted to the people in a referendum.”
Arguments for restructuring the country in specific ways tend to downplay perhaps the most fundamental requirement for reform, which is the human factor. It goes without saying that no constitution is self-operating, meaning all constitutions depend on operators for success or failure. This reality is so real that any argument for restructuring that fails to take cognisance of it is so unreal.
The country’s political evolution shows that the constitution may not be the most problematic problem. When those empowered to operate the constitution use their powers to cripple the constitution, the resultant failure cannot be the fault of the constitution.
The people may well have issues with the current constitution because there will always be constitutional issues needing resolution; but there will always be further issues to resolve after resolution. A constitution is necessarily work in progress because of social dynamism. It is a contradiction to have an unchanging and unchangeable constitution in a changing and changeable social context. Any restructuring of the country must, therefore, be informed by the reality of contextual changeability.
It is easy to identify the critical importance of the human factor in the operation of the country’s constitution; it is difficult to make the human operators of the constitution do so with utmost good faith. In the final analysis, the kind of restructuring that will advance the country’s interest is an ethical question.
There is a tragic aspect of the restructuring debate, which is that it represents a primary moral failure. Without sounding romantic, the ultimate restructuring must happen in the mind. It is obvious that the mind is where the unprogressive operation of the constitution begins, and the mind is where it will end.
Restructuring became a hot front-burner issue on account of unprogressive governance, meaning that if the country’s political operators got governance right the idea of restructuring that is spreading like a dangerous fever would perhaps not have been presented so explosively.
The questions are: If the constitution is operated with good faith, and that is possible, will the grounds for extensive restructuring still exist? Is the elevation of form over content, which the restructuring debate implies, a necessary condition for progress? Is the moral content of political leadership in Nigeria irrelevant to the campaign for restructuring?
